Welcome to Curious Business

Every Friday, I post a small insight into running Curio City and/or Blue Hills Editorial Services. My most recent posts are directly below. You can also start with the first post, or use the subject labels to the right to home in on particular topics. Feel free to comment on anything that interests you.

Friday, September 27, 2013

Existential Crisis Part 2: Do Something Else

First
let’s put a bow on September.

September

Total
income:
+13.7%Total COGS: +45.3%Payroll: +18.1%

Marketing: +158.3%Net Income (Profit): -1898.8% (-$822)

Year to
Date:

Total
income:
-16.6%Total COGS: -21.4%Payroll: -16.1%

Marketing: -3.2%Net Income (Profit): -67.7% (-$882)

This
year’s first black month came at a steep price. Spending 158% more on
advertising to deliver 14% more sales is a losing proposition. Given that I’ve
been down by 20% all year I could spin it as a 34% increase. But whether you go
with 14% or 34%, you can see what the 158% jump in advertising did to my bottom
line. Google is laughing all the way to the bank.

Recording
the first positive month of the year makes it difficult to go back into my
existential crisis, but I’m sure the red ink will be back soon. I wish I could
believe that I’ve turned the corner. But a $900 kite sale on 10/15/12 means
that lightning has to strike again this year if I hope to reach October’s sales
target.

*********************

What would
I do for money if Curio City folded? I’ve been out of the workforce for too
long, the labor market is too weak, and my skills are too outdated to even think
about career-level work. My life as a salaryman is over. But I might be able to
score a minimum-wage (or slightly better) job. Fulltime jobs at any pay are
highly coveted and go to people who have education and skills and connections –
especially connections -- and the labor market isn't going to heal as long as Republicans keep sabotaging the federal budget. But let’s pretend that I could somehow find a fulltime
minimum-wage job. In Massachusetts, that’s $8 per hour for 35 hours per week,
$280 per week, $14,560 per year. Virtually all hourly jobs are being pared back
below 30 hours to avoid the Obamacare coverage requirement, so 30 hours is the
new “fulltime” for those of us at the bottom of the economic ladder. Eight
bucks an hour for 30 hours per week is just $10,920 per year. Last year
Curio City paid me $15,371. Even with this year’s compensation on track to
shrink by 20%, the $12,296 that I expect to pull in still rivals a minimum wage
job. I would make less money working fulltime for somebody else than I make
working three-quarters time for myself. Add the intangible benefits of making
my own schedule and not answering to some two-bit tyrant and Curio City looks
pretty good. Wage slavery needs to pay more than $10 to be competitive in an
Obama-fulltime 30-hour week. California is talking about raising its minimum to
that level, but I don’t see it spreading here soon.

What are
the alternatives to a fulltime job?

Popular
culture’s advice to “Do what you love and the money will follow” isn’t very helpful
if you don’t love anything. I love to drink good beer. If I were 20 years
younger I might have gotten into the craft beer industry in its formative days,
but I don’t have any beer-making expertise and can’t see how drinking it is
ever going to pay off. Massachusetts is currently setting up medical marijuana
dispensaries, but one needs to have $500,000 in financing and a solid business plan
to crack that market, and there are already 120-some people competing for
30-some licenses. Legal recreational pot isn’t even on the ballot yet.

The real
money’s in the black market; Walter White is my role model for a broken, defeated man who turned his life around. Since the DEA and
the NSA will eventually get around to reading this post, I’ll just say that I
don’t have much of a criminal mind. I don’t foresee a bright future as a drug
lord, whoremonger, or slave trader, although I wouldn’t rule any of those
careers out if an opportunity came along. I don’t know how one finds such
opportunities, though. Probably Craigslist.

Petty
crime doesn’t interest me. Nor does gambling or playing the lottery. The
risk:reward ratio is too unfavorable. But I’m not out to get rich. I just need to
survive the next 10 years until Social Security comes to the rescue.

Boston
being a medical mecca, I might be able to make some serious coin as a lab rat.
There are always studies looking for test subjects. The criteria for any given
study are usually pretty narrow, but there are so many studies going on that I
could probably get paid to take experimental drugs.

My most realistic
option is to work part-time without folding Curio City (and I know some readers
are thinking “well, duh”). If I could bag groceries or stock shelves or tend
somebody’s shop for 16 hours a week I’d make $128 before taxes. That’s more
than Curio City pays me for most summer weeks. Getting out of the house and
interacting with other humans makes me cringe, but some limited social
interaction might be good for me, even in a menial position.

Curio City
demands most of my attention between mid September and mid February, when retailers
hire their seasonal help. I can’t work elsewhere during the winter if I want to
keep my own business alive. But there must be some job openings during the slow
season, too. I could spare 12 or 16 hours a week from March through August
without putting too big a dent in Curio City’s sales or screwing up my personal
schedule too badly to garden and cook. I haven’t looked for a job since the
newspaper classified ads were all the rage, but it can’t be terribly hard to
figure out how it’s done nowadays.

The only
thing I’ll rule out entirely is food service.

I figure
that being offline and away from my phone for 16 hours a week would reduce my
summer sales by 10-20%, or $75-150 per week. Only 20% of that would have found
its way into my pocket, so I’d expect to my Curio City paychecks to shrink by just
$15-30 a week. If I’m earning $128 doing something menial, I’d still come out $100
ahead. I’d have to buy some presentable clothes, but that shouldn’t cost more
than $100.

A reader
suggested that I revisit the idea of opening a bricks & mortar store in
Boston. A local chain called Copley Flair folded a few years ago, leaving an
opening for an offbeat gift shop. I hate to be dismissive, but I’m going to dismiss
this idea on two points: First, I hate stores and don’t want any part of owning
one – especially not a high-rent
urban store -- and second, nothing has arisen to claim Copley Flair’s niche
since it failed. That tells me it wasn’t exactly a gold mine. It’s probably a
recipe for slow-motion, high-cost failure…and I don’t want to do it anyway.

So that’s
it: I’m going to look for a part-time job next February or March and look into
the possibility of becoming a medical test subject in the meantime. Unless,
that is, I can turn Curio City around in a big way. And that is grist for next
week’s post.

5 comments:

I think you are really selling your skills, experience, and value to employers short. There is a big gap between a high-level career job and minimum wage. What I think you should be looking for is a job in between those two extremes that would pay more and be more interesting and less horrible than a menial job, and yet not require a new college degree or lifetime commitment. These are hard to find, of course, but you really aren't under any huge time pressure here, and perseverance is one of your many strengths. You could continue CC full-time or do CC part time and some low end job part-time while you were looking.

Having now been out of conventional work (and downwardly mobile) for 9 years now, I don't understand the market anymore. All I see available are high-end and low-end jobs. 80% of the workforce is competing for the constantly shrinking pool in between...and considering themselves lucky when they find something only slightly below their level. I think I am too old and outdated to compete at that level.

Well i think you can do a whole bunch of stuff. A) there is Elance where you can do freelancing, i hire people on free lance all the time. It would certainly pay better then minimum job. b) I think running a business is a mufti skill, you weren't out of job market for 9 years. You were developing different set of skills. Which all play role in business: writing, selling, conceptual thinking. Biggest issue i see is you feel defeatist, and you need even tiny bit of "go get them" attitude.